


Unforgettable

by octoberdear (jupiterslifelessmoons)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF), Within the Wires (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Amnesia, Angst, BAMF Phil, Body Horror, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Dan gets kidnapped, Horror, Kidnapping, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Phil Needs a Hug, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-18 02:13:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13672125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jupiterslifelessmoons/pseuds/octoberdear
Summary: Imagine someone tracing back over your life and looking for the one thing that makes you stronger. The thing you couldn’t live without. The thing that makes you feel smarter, braver, kinder, funnier, more you. Simplymorethan you were before.Maybe somethingis inaccurate. No, that should be someone.Imagine someone found that person in your life, and they ripped them out. Not remove them physically, but rip them right out of your memories. Make it so you might as well have never met them.Are you imagining it? Yes? Good. Unfortunately Dan Howell doesn’t have to imagine.Now imagine being on the other side. Imagine that the person who matters most to you in the world, your best friend, the reason you are better, has no memory of you. Imagine them trapped and terrified and confused…and there’s nothing you can do about it. Well, almost nothing.Unfortunately Phil Lester doesn’t have to imagine either.





	1. Side 1a

He wakes up cold and alone.

The floor beneath his fingers is smooth and slippery. Tile. His eyes burn whenever he tries to open them; the ceiling blazes with artificial light. Everything hurts. Color swim behind his eyelids.

He tries to speak, but no words will come to him and his throat contracts painfully. For a terrifying moment his mind goes blank and he simply gropes for something, anything, to hold on to. The fear propels him to his feet and as he stands, a rush of information in the form of images and emotions and an overwhelming panic washes over him.

Dan. His name is Daniel James Howell, and he makes Youtube videos, and he lives in a flat in London with–with–

Nothing. The memory has slipped from him like sand through clenched fingers. His surroundings slowly set in: a 10x10 concrete cube with a mattress in one corner. There's a doorway to his left, a small bathroom with bare hinges where the door should be. Directly in front of him is a door with a slot in it, like for letters, a tray of what looks like high school cafeteria food on the floor, and a small package wrapped in brown paper. Another pang of fear shoots through him. Is he in jail? What has he done? He can’t remember anything except going to bed Friday night. Is it still Friday? It feels as though it has been much longer.

Dan bends down and picks up the package. There's no writing on it, but when he turns it over he finds a typed out label reading simply “For Dan”.

A new thought occurs to him. Has he been kidnapped by a fan? Oh, dear God, he hopes not. That would probably be worse than being in jail. He digs his fingernail into the corner of the packaging, trying not to think about the possibility of having been captured by some psycho subscriber.

Inside the package is a clear plastic box, the kind organized people use to store things in their bedrooms. He scrabbles at the snaps on the sides, noticing for the first time that his nails are broken and bloody.

Inside the box is an old battery powered tape recorder and ten cassette tapes. Each of the tapes have the same kind of typed label as the one that is on the package, and has a number and a letter. Dan takes the box over to the bed and collapses onto it. He wants to just lie there and go to sleep for hours, but he's afraid that if he does he’ll forget more than what he already has. He takes the first tape out of the box and slides it into the cassette player and presses play. He pulls the tray of plastic looking food over to the bed as the initial white noise begins. He figures he’ll probably need some kind of sustenance if he's going to figure out this madness.

Cassette One, Side A: Stress, Shoulders (Ocean)

Welcome to your first relaxation cassette. In these tapes I will guide you through a series of visualization exercises. These tapes will aid you in your recovery here at the Institute. When you are finished with this tape, return it to your unit nurse and fill out the accompanying survey.

Breathe in.

Breathe out. Settle yourself. Forget where you are and how you got there; focus on breathing.

Breathe in:

Feel the air fill your lungs. Feel your body rise as you absorb the oxygen, as it rushes through your bloodstream, bringing life to every tiny corner of your body. Imagine you are an ocean, and your breath is the rising tide lapping against the beaches of the world. Imagine the way hundreds of millions of grains of sand feel beneath you. Imagine reaching out…and relaxing your grip, falling back to the depths, between each bit of sand and sea smoothed boulder and broken branch of coral.

Breathe out.

In this tape we will focus on breathing. You will trust only my voice and your body, to which you are subject.

Imagine you are on a plane. You do not like planes very much. They used to be something of an adventure, holding an air of excitement and novelty when you were in your younger years that has long since worn off. You have been on far too many planes now.

You have made your way through security half asleep, a travel coffee mug clenched too tight in your right hand. The coffee is scalding, but your mind is too busy to remember the last time you placed the rim against your lips, and so your tongue is numb and sore by the time your bags have been rifled through and your body wanded over.

You keep looking across the space of the airport, too big to be called “room” in your head. There is nothing to see, nothing but people and suitcases and scratched plastic chairs, but you feel as though you’ve lost something. You’ve lost something, and you have to keep looking for it.

Much like the coffee, it is something that won’t quite register in your hazy, before-ten-am mind. He’s not lost, you tell yourself. You do not have to look for him.

Still, your eyes wander across the terminal until they snag on a familiar figure, and then wander back lazily to the conveyor belt until they are drawn back across the space again.

The figure notices you looking, but pretends not to. He always does. He knows you want no further reminder of your need to cling to familiar objects, familiar faces, of your hatred of airport terminals with their heavy chemical air and too bright lights and barking security guards.

There’s some small holdup, some tiny detail of protocol that causes one of the officers to exhale through her nose unhappily and leave you fidgeting uncomfortably, sweating under the lights. You don’t know what to do with your hands. Your limbs are long and awkward and seem stitched onto your body, like an ill made measurement for a marionette with its strings left loose. You shove your hands deep into the pockets of your skinny jeans, scrunching your fingers against the thin lining of lint that’s collected in them.

“Just a minute,” the security guard calls in a clipped voice, and you nod. Your head feels disconnected from your body, the sharp movement somehow separate from your consciousness. The lights are hot and bright. You blink, trying to clear the spots from your eyes. Lint gathers under your fingernails and you hear the person behind you huff impatiently. The space is too hot, and too cold. Your skin films with sweat and the coffee mug comes automatically to your chapped lips.

There’s a sudden warmth on your left shoulder, a slight weight that hovers tentatively above your collarbone and the beginning of your shoulder blade. It anchors you, the gentle heat unknotting the nerves coiled in your upper body.

“Just a little while longer,” says the voice that belongs to the hand which has attached itself to your shoulder, and unlike in the security guard’s previous announcement, your ears are able to detect genuine concern for you. The presence stays slightly below and behind your shoulder, close enough for you to sense.

You do not turn around, but you place your hand briefly on top of the other. The swirling galaxies of your fingerprints read wrinkled knuckles, infinitesimally small lines of the keratin of a nail, the softness of skin made so much more obvious because it is not your own, all in the few seconds that you allow your hand to linger. Enough to lock in an unspoken message; don’t leave me.

So the hand stays, even when the security guard finally returns with your suitcase and it is time to leave, even though you no longer have to worry about the disgruntled woman behind you or the uncomfortable limbo of standing still in a place that is meant only for movement.

A minute later and there is simply an arm around your shoulder, and so you lug the suitcase behind you with one arm, even though it’s heavy. You wait in line like that, the quiet presence beside you instead of behind you, all your anxieties and tangled knot of worries unraveled and smoothed out like a ball of yarn, pushed along by a curious cat until the whole thing lies complicated but flat and still against a clean floor.

You board the plane and fall asleep, despite the caffeine feebly pushing at your consciousness, and when your head lolls over onto his shoulder he does not say anything, even though he can hardly move for the couple hours. He does not mind, because to him your comfort and security are much more important than his ability to move his arm.

(Here the voice pauses, and Dan could hear whoever was speaking draw a deep breath.)

Breathe.

We got away from the breathing, didn’t we? Breathe in. Imagine watching the ground drop away from you as sleep tugs at your eyelids, imagine somehow feeling as calm as though you are still tethered to the ground, because there is a well known hand on your shoulder. Imagine looking outside and thinking that you can almost see well enough to barely comprehend the slightest curve of Earth, how truly enormous it is.

Breathe out.

You are asleep now; you are safe.

Well; safe has many meanings. You are not whole, but for now no further risk will come to you than what already has. I do not mean to alarm you. We will work on you being whole again. It is very important that you remain calm.

Remaining calm is extremely important to your continued safety and eventual…release. The institute does not wish to harm you. Continue to practice your relaxation exercises, and your release will occur much sooner.

END SIDE A.


	2. Side 1b

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan's not as alone as he might think.

**Side 1B**

There was a metallic click, and Dan jumped, nearly spilling the remains of the spongy meatloaf on the cold floor. He wasn’t used to tape players; he couldn’t remember the last time he had used one before and anyway, he was far too caught up in the information he’d just gotten. Who had sent these tapes?

He hit the eject button and jumped again at the second, louder click, then cursed under his breath. He flips the tape over and shoves it back in, pops the lid into place, and hits play.

**Cassette One, Side B**

On this side of the cassette I will guide you through a visualization to reduce stress.

Close your eyes.

It is very important that your eyes remain closed throughout this entire relaxation cassette. You must trust only my voice and your body, to which you are subject.

Imagine you are an insect. Everything you see is iterated many times over; your vision is full of blue globes, each one rippling into a higher plane of blue, faster and faster until you know you are flying. You are held aloft by a warm breeze, making it possible for you to stay nearly completely still. Watching. Waiting. For what you’re not sure.

There’s a sudden downdraft, and a snap, and you find yourself falling towards the blue, the dark of it swallowing your vision, the wind rushing in your ears.

Are you alone?

Are you sure you’re alone?

You fall faster and faster, pulling your wings back subconsciously because there is something painful tugging at your shoulders and a feeling of dread in the back of your mind.

Falling.

Falling.

The darker blue swallows up your vision, iterated many times over, deeper and more consuming for the lack of horizon. Falling.

And then you land, and there’s something hard pressing against you from all sides, and you go on falling through blue too deep to reach your eyes as the air becomes thick and your lungs fill and then empty.

Darkness, and blue, and still you fall, and it feels as though you’ve been falling forever, swirling in a vortex of currents and bubbles with no direction and no sense of up and down and air. You need air.

(Something brushes against Dan’s stomach and he gasps. His eyes are closed, and he does...not...open them.)

The fall stops.

Around you the earth trembles and quakes. Your whole world turns over and inside out, and then- ever so slowly- you begin rising.

You know it is rising because you do not think it is possible to fall any further. This is slower, more certain. There is a feeling of release and relief bubbling in your veins as your head breaks the surface of the water and you breathe.

Breathe.

(Dan does, and as he inhales he can distinctly feel fingers pressing against his abdomen. Two fingers on his right side. Gloved. He squeezes his eyes shut tighter. He doesn’t know why he trusts the voice on the tape so much.)

Breathe in;

Breathe out.

You are alone. You are safe.

Are you alone?

The hand bears you up gently and you can feel the water drain from each crevice of your body, feel the bumps and ridges of the mountainous hand beneath you. You gasp and look up to see the sky again, lovely and warm and blue, iterated so many times.

There is something in front of the sky.

It is blue too, but in between the blue there are lines of black and white and pale peach, and inside the blue there are small flecks of a green the color of moss and orange like a broken quartz crystal, spread across your vision like millions of stars.

There’s a voice above you calling out a name, wavery with the water still in your ears. Your vision is eclipsed again and now the blue is almost entirely gone.

You can hear another voice answer it, brighter, more excited, hovering over your head like another dragonfly, washing sea water over your body. A cave of a hand sweeps over you and the water is gone again. You rise, slowly, unnaturally slow and shaky compared to your own smooth flight, and then you are lying in grass and breathing in the scent of chlorine and citronella, chemical and foreign, and between that the smell of warm water and the ineffable haze of summer.

Two shadows hover over you and the voices continue, soft and excited, a conspiracy of secrets simply by merit of being together and quiet and alone. You lose track of time as the blue of the sky slips into indigo, then grey and red and gold, and finally black, and the stars are so numerous that you are unsure which of them are real and which of them are simply repeated in your eyes. The heavy drag of your wings lessens and you can move them again, but you stay anyway and listen to the low murmur of the two voices.

When the moon rises a hundred times above the black water and hangs, low in the sky, for a good half hour, the voices retreat and you finally lift your heavy wings into a hum and fly away.

Later that night the two boys sit in a hotel room, exhausted and happy, sprawled across the duvet of the older boy’s bed. The television is on, but they are not paying attention. Before the moon reaches its height and begins to sink again they are both asleep.

Listen, remember, comprehend: there are three cameras. One above the door. It cannot reach the bathroom or the right side of the bed. One above the door on the opposite side. It cannot see directly under the door or directly onto the right and left walls. One at the end of the corridor. It can see everything in the hallway, but not faces. Only uniforms and shapes.

You have reached the end of the relaxation cassette.

Please fill out the questionnaire, fold it into thirds and turn it in, along with this cassette, to your unit security. Do not allow anyone to see the answers you have marked on your questionnaire.

END SIDE B.

Dan removed the cassette from the player with shaking hands. The click hadn’t startled him this time, but he could still feel phantom fingers on his stomach. He looks down to see that his shirt is bunched up. He pulls it down quickly. The door to his room is closed.

A moment after he’s processed that the door springs open, and he jumps. A woman wearing scrubs and carrying a clipboard stands in the doorway. “Hello, Dan,” she says softly.

“He-hello,” he stammers. “Do I know you?”

The woman- he guesses she’s a nurse- smiles and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “No,” she says. “You were only brought in last night. How are you feeling?”

“Uh- fine, I guess.” It’s not true. He has a pounding headache and a swirl of sick suspicion surrounding those tapes.

“Great. Oh, I see you’ve received your tapes already, they’re ahead of schedule. Hmm. Have you listened yet?”

“What? Oh- uh, yeah.” Dan glances down at the tape dangling from his fingers. He hadn’t even realized he was still holding on to it.

“Awesome.” She scribbles something on the clipboard and then hands him a piece of paper. “Fill this out, if you don’t mind?”

“Uh- sure,” says Dan, mentally cursing his tongue for being unable to come up with a complete sentence that doesn’t involve stuttering. He pats his pockets for the pen he usually carries to edit scripts, but they’re completely empty. No phone, no charger, no paper, and definitely no pen. The nurse notices him looking and hands him her pen.

“Where is my-?”

“In your storage locker. You’ll have all your belongings returned to you upon discharge.”

“Discharge?”

She cocks her head slowly to one side and a shock runs down Dan’s spine. “Welcome to the Institute.”

“The-?”

“It’s a special hospital for amnesia victims.”

Amnesia victims.

Oh.

Dan doesn’t like the way she says “special.”

But he takes the pen and fills out the survey anyway. This is what it looked like when he was done:

1\. Where are you?

The Institute, I suppose. If you mean where am I physically I have no bloody clue.

2\. Why are you here?

I can’t remember anything.

3\. What did you do today?

I woke up and listened to once cassette tape and ate lunch.

4\. What did you do last week?

I don’t know.

5\. Who is Phil Lester?

I don’t know.

Dan fold the paper three times and hand sit, along with the pen, back to the nurse. She takes it, offers him a winning smile, and gestures into the corridor. “Would you like to see the facility?”

“Uh...sure,” he says, and follows the nurse outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based on Dan and Phil's Jamaica travel vlogs, which can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7_NDqU_r5k  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj6rfbPQjsM and  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcDXOOcOXf8


	3. Side 2a

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan meets someone new.

Dan’s been here a few days and already the Institute feels like the only place he’s ever known. And yet…and yet.

It is not home.

Dan has a home, he knows that. He’s been informed that he used to live in a flat by himself in London and is, apparently, something of a celebrity on Youtube. Dan finds the idea of people being obsessed with him a bit laughable but apparently ad revenue is paying for all his medical bills, so he’s not complaining. The nurses work with him every day, asking innumerable questions about who he is and where he grew up and what he does with his life. He answers all of them blankly. His head is full of static, stuffed with cotton, blank and fuzzy.

Except for one thing.

The voice; the voice on the cassette tapes. For some reason it’s the only thing that gives him even an inkling of a familiar feeling. That voice…it could be home.

He trusts it.

Dan feels that this is a very dangerous thing to do. The tapes are spirited away in the middle of the night, according to his day nurse. He just slips them out his mail slot before bed and sure enough they’ve disappeared in the morning. He’s been saving the ones he has left (there’s not much entertainment around here). Nobody says anything more about them to him, just to fill out the questionnaire like a good little boy and be done with them. Once Dan tried asking where they came from. The day nurse’s smile had slipped a little. “The Institute,” she said, her voice stilted. He had been about to ask who recorded them and when, but he suddenly felt a great need to protect the voice who made them. He had a feeling that none of the nurses knew who he was, and they weren’t too happy about that.

Today, though, Dan is not thinking about the voice- he’s thinking about the facility. His nurse has said that he’s been here long enough to be allowed outside, and he’s thrilled. Even in the brief time that he’s been here’s he’s already begun to get cabin fever. There’s not much to do besides the scheduled talks and therapy sessions and the endless questions.

He lines up with the rest of the patients who are usually sitting around the lounge and after a head count that seems to take an eternity they start the slow shuffle to the courtyard. It’s in the middle of the building, presumably, Dan thinks, so that nobody can escape.

“Okay,” says the nurse holding the door shut, “half an hour-” and then she opens it and there’s a rush of fresh air and everyone tromps outside at an agonizingly slow rate until finally, Dan is free.

The courtyard is actually surprisingly nice. Everything is well planted- there are zinnias and daisies and snapdragons and other flowers whose names have not yet returned to Dan’s memory, and in the center is a stand of bamboo and four stone benches.

He amuses himself for a while by walking very slowly around the courtyard, trying to make the small space last, but eventually he finds himself sitting on one of the stone benches and staring up at the sky, squinting into the sun and wondering if it can see his home.

That’s when a nurse he doesn’t recognize approaches him. Dan watches from the corner of his eye but doesn’t put his head down until the nurse is practically on top of him. He looks down, trying to blink the black spots out of his eyes. “Uh- hello?”

The nurse smiles. There’s something vaguely familiar about him, like a poster that you find behind your bedpost that fell down the day you got it. It makes Dan’s skin crawl, makes him feel like there’s something he’s forgetting, something he should be doing.

“Hi, Dan,” says the nurse, and smiles. He holds out his hand and Dan goes to shake it, but the hand is not empty. The nurse is holding Dan’s second cassette tape. A portable cassette player and a pair of headphones dangle from the other hand Dan takes the tape, confused. “Why-”

The nurse bends down to his level, brushes a curl out of his eyes. “You can’t space them out like you’ve been doing, Dan,” he says. “It’s vital that you listen to all the tapes as soon as possible- one a day is probably best.”

Dan scrunches his eyebrows together. “But why-”

“Enrichment,” says the nurse, and smiles. “I have to get back to my department now, but I’d greatly appreciate it if you listened to this tape now. Alright?”

Confused, Dan nods.

“Excellent. Third tape tomorrow, then.”

He sets the cassette player and headphones down on the bench next to Dan and in a second he’s back inside, leaving Dan wondering about the voice again.

He can’t get it out of his head.

He pops the tape into the player, plugs the headphones in, presses play and closes his eyes.

Cassette Two, Side A: Loneliness, Stomach (Hallways)

Welcome to tape two in this series of relaxation cassettes. In this tape we will discuss loneliness.

Loneliness is not a feeling that most people generally consider a normal emotion. It is not happiness, or sadness, or anger, or fear. It is not easily sorted into a box and packed away into a shelf of comprehension. This is something you have always understood.

Loneliness is a black void, a patch of outer space sucking away at a normal apartment on a normal day, making everything colder and darker and snatching the breath from your lungs like a magician snatching a tablecloth off of a laden table. Then the space gains tentacles and feelers and vines and reaches out to choke you, and what’s left of you isn’t even a person anymore. It is a scrap of void, heaving for breath and bleeding tears.

At least, that’s how it was once described to me.

Imagine coming home. Imagine having run out briefly to but a few groceries that you forgot on your last run, snatching your coat on the way out the door and yelling some explanation over your shoulder at your flatmate. Imagine the dull, pleasant journey on the tube to the closest grocery store, the little smiles when your eyes accidentally meet someone leaning tiredly against the wall of the train or coming towards you on the pavement. Imagine repeating the list over and over in your head because you forgot to write it down: butter, eggs, assortment of fruit, toothpaste. Butter, eggs, fruit, toothpaste. The list shortens as you pick up each item, bumping through your head like an out of tune song.

You can’t decide which fruit you need, and so end up with loads of oranges that you probably don’t need. You hope your flatmate doesn’t mind.

The journey back is just as dull and just as pleasant. A warm breeze has settled over the city and you feel it wrap around you, tugging your spirits up until you can’t help but let out a happy sigh.

You turn your key in the lock and step inside, twirl once, set the groceries on the kitchen island and hang up your jacket before you hear it.

There’s a sound coming from down the hallway like thousands of paperclips falling and crashing onto a glass floor: heavy, heartbreaking sobs, sharp as scrap metal. You run down the hall to find your flatmate curled up in the middle of the hallway, head tucked between his knees. You stop then, unsure if you should run towards him or back away and pretend you’re not home- but he’s looked up, and it’s too late, and for a moment the sobbing stops and all you can do is stare at each other. He has tear tracks running down to his chin in small rivers, cutting across his face like shiny scars, and his eyes are sunken and red and lined with shadows. He bites his lip, and when you see the sharpness of his tooth cutting into his own mouth something in you breaks and you rush to him, unable to stand it any longer.

He sinks into you, sniffling, and you stroke his hair and wonder what you did wrong. He says your name, only it’s so choked that you can only assume it’s your name, and you wrap an arm around him and hook the other arm under his legs and sweep him up, carry him to the couch, and wait.

Sometimes he speaks, and sometimes he doesn’t.

(Here the voice pauses and takes a shuddering breath. Dan’s gone stiff. He can hear genuine grief in the voice, and it scares him.)

Today he does speak. He tells you about the void and the cold and not being able to breath, and you tell him that when the void comes after him he will grow wings and rise above it.

But, he tells you, the void has wings too, and teeth and claws, and it is faster than him and stronger too, and it will find him and rip his wings to shreds.

Then, you say- and stop. Then you push him into the couch with a soft kiss and whisper that your metaphors will fight his metaphors until he is no longer afraid of the dark. Then, I will stay with you forever and ever and ever and and the void will never find you again.

He smiles. It’s a nice thought.

You get up to put on the kettle and slide a DVD into the player, and on the couch your flatmate sniffs and wipes away the last of his tears.

END SIDE A.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based on Dan’s existential crisis videos and his fear of the dark video which can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1jaY136B_k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0HkSWVsYOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BlRcLhUGkE


	4. Side 2b

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I have nothing to say for myself. I uhhhh. I hope some people are still reading this. Hopefully. As always see end notes for video references.

Everyone’s streaming towards the door but Dan just sits on the bench like he’s made of stone too. 

He knows that voice. He’s sure of it. He tries to reach out again, tries to grasp the memories just out of his mental sight, but he comes up short and the frustration is so huge that he could cry.

“Dan?”

There’s a hand on his shoulder and he flinches automatically away from it. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. I shouldn’t have touched you when you weren’t expecting it.”

Dan looks up to see that it’s the nurse from before. “Do I- you- do I know you?”

The nurse holds a finger to his lips. “Later, Daniel.”

The frustration must show on his face because the nurse adds, “I promise it will get better. You’re not going to be here for long. Not everyone who stays at the Institute gets better, but you will.”

He says this with such confidence that Dan feels that he must know something that Dan doesn’t. He’s not sure if that’s a comforting thought or not.

The nurse holds out his hand to shake. “I’m PJ, by the way,” he says, pointing to his name badge. “Dan,” Dan says awkwardly. “But. Well. You know that.” he stands up. “Am I going to get in trouble if I try to stay out here longer?”

PJ shrugs. “Unfortunately.”

Dan picks up the tape player and walks with PJ to the door. Right before they go back inside, PJ leans forward and whispers, “Please do finish those tapes soon, Dan. They’re very important.”

Dan starts side B as soon as he gets back up to his room. He doesn’t even get lunch first. He can go to the nurse’s station for a snack once he’s done.

Right now, he just wants to hear more of the voice.

**Side 2B**

There have always been eyes on u--um, on you. Organic eyes, mechanical eyes, eyes of your own devising. Eyes friendly and unfriendly. There was a time when the whole world was watching you, and sometimes it was a blessing. To see friendly, excited faces on the tube or looking out at you from a sea of similar faces, all hoping you’ll do well, all loving you, in their own way...it is not a thing many people experience.  
Sometimes it was a curse. Waking up to find that the world wanted nothing more to take out its aggression on you and accuse you of things you had no hold on...moving in secret, dealing in secret...feeling unwanted hands pry and poke for a taste of the watching eyes...it could become quite tiresome.

There are still eyes on you. One above the door, several in the hallway. The eyes are everywhere, but they do not see all. They do not see under the bed, directly inside the doorway, inside the bathroom, and they do not see for the brief space of time precisely between 7:59PM and 8:00PM.

Breathe in.

The eyes are now more unfriendly than friendly, but you have not been abandoned.

Breathe out.

Imagine you have just gotten an invitation in the form of an email. It’s your official email, not the one you use for friends. The whole thing looks very official too, boxed up and framed by electronic signatures and sleek seals. Your hands tremble a little when you read over it, and when you finish, you read it twice more, just to be certain.

You should be happy. You are happy, but there is something missing.

You lie back on your bed and exhale, tracing the swirls of paint on your ceiling with your eyes.

The email lies open in your inbox, waiting for your fingers to click out a reply. You glance at it once more and then slam your laptop shut, mind made up.

You call for your flatmate and get a half whine in response, and so you walk into the lounge and perch on the couch.

He’s not watching you; his eyes are glued to the screen and his teeth are clenched, concentrated on his pixelated avatar. He makes a questioning noise as you sit down, but you don’t say anything. He’s deep into it, and this feels oddly important, and so you wait.

Your flatmate plays for a few more minutes before realizing that something’s up and pausing the game. He says your name, pitched upward, concerned. He asks you what’s wrong.

You tell him nothing is wrong, but this is still early on; at least, it feels early on now, and suddenly the whole idea of this makes your skin crawl with nerves. You tell him about the invitation sitting unanswered on your laptop and his brow furrows in confusion. He wants to know what the problem is; it sounds wonderful.

Tentatively, you reach out and take his hand, and tell him: “I’m not going if they won’t let you come too.”

He blinks at you for a moment and then immediately begins to protest, but your mind is made up now. You march back to your room and your unanswered email and demand as politely as you can that the station takes you both.

That night over dinner your flatmate complains that you’re throwing away a big chance on him but you only shake your head and smile. Nothing could be thrown away on your flatmate.

You often find yourself thinking that he was--is--worth anything. He rolls his eyes at you and curls his fork around a mouthful of spaghetti and you have to hide a smile. 

A few months later you remember letting go of his hand as you left the apartment, pulling your coat around your hunched shoulders and twirling nervously as you waited for the cab. Your flatmate is staying behind, partially because he has a cold and is being dramatic, and partially because you think bringing him to the meeting that will decide his fate and that of the radio station might not be a good idea.

The cab driver is polite but quiet, and the ride gives you time to think. Time to doubt, really.

Time to tell yourself that perhaps this is a bit pretentious. You were invited, as a guest, and you’ve demanded that they let you bring your boyfriend along. It sounds, now, like something very high school drama...very privileged and demanding. The thought makes you squirm, makes your skin go hot and cold with discomfort, and by the time you arrive at the station you’re not even sure you want to go in the first place.  
The station is huge and as official feeling as the email, with cubes of glassy recording studios studded throughout like glossy, colorful gems, and everyone who rushes past you is in a suit and tie or blouse or skirt in dark, businesslike colors. You feel very alone in your bright pikachu shirt and jeans, like a small and shiny pebble among the bigger, brighter treasures. It takes you several tries to come to the correct room, so that by the time you actually knock on the door, you expect to be answered by yet another polite, bored receptionist, and are surprised to find yourself ushered in and offered a chair and a glass of water.

On the whole, the meeting goes surprisingly well. They speak to you as though of course you’ll be accepting, and when you sheepishly mention your flatmate they take it without a blink and tell you that of course they’d be happy to have him too.

Later, when your flatmate wakes up from his nap just enough to shift his head into your lap where you’re sitting up on the couch, you whisper the good news to him. He sniffles, makes a catlike noise of happiness, and demands that you switch to American Horror Story, as he’s already seen this episode of The Great British Bake Off.

You roll your eyes and change over.

This...this is the end of your second relaxation cassette. There is no questionnaire this time around.

…

Please, if you remember nothing else from this tape, remember the eyes. Remember where they are not. Remember that they do not see faces very well but that they do see uniforms. Remember….remember that not all of the eyes are unfriendly.

**END SIDE B.**

The sudden click doesn’t startle Dan this time; he’s expecting it. He takes a deep, settling breath and replaces the tape in the box that he found it in until his nurse comes by to do rounds.

He knows what to do now. He knows what the voice is trying to tell him. He waits, passing the time agitatedly with the few books he can find in the lounge, glancing at the clock much more than is strictly necessary.

And then, at precisely 7:59, he slips out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is not based on any one particular video, but if you'd like to see Dan and Phil's first radio show, here it is.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HNFxxmJs6w
> 
> Also, here are a couple of my favorite radio show moments, the Lily Allen tribute:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5D7OrLT-u0
> 
> And here's the donut eating contest, where they weren't allowed to lick their lips:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_of-j5Vk5fI

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfic is a Within the Wires AU. I understand that the phandom is WAY bigger than the WTW fandom, and so the majority of people reading this won’t know what Within the Wires is (it’s a podcast made by the creators of Welcome to Night Vale). Soooo….go listen to Within the Wires!! Go!! It’s so good and so underrated and it is incredible and creepy and heartfelt and oddly relaxing. (Oh, also, this fanfic contains spoilers for season one, so careful with that.) This fic has been a long time coming and I’m so happy to bring it to you finally ^.^


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